


Adventures Past and Future

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Category: Doctor Who, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Growing Up, Swearing, Time Travel, going on time travelling adventures, past adventures, pre-Legends of Tomorrow, snarts as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:39:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5823670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The others might be impressed by Hunter but this isn't the first time Len has traveled through time. And 'Captain' Hunter's ship isn't even bigger on the inside.</p><p>In which Clara Oswald and Captain Cold talk about the past (or may be the future).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures Past and Future

When they told him he had a visitor he’d assumed it was Barry. It was always Barry. And he just wasn’t in the mood for moralising.

 

So he was ready for a fight when they took him through, tense, closed off. The shift when he saw her would have been pathetically obvious-

 

And it had been a long time but Clara looks exactly the same (of course she does). She smiles and his back straightens and there's a bit of him that thinks the sensible thing to do would be to turn round, head back to the cells-

 

He sits and picks up the phone.

 

“Hi Lenny.”

 

Only his sister calls him that anymore.

 

“Hi.” He replies.

 

There’s a short pause while she brushes some of her hair back behind her ear.

 

“So, how long has it been for you?” It’s that false-casual tone she uses when things aren’t really OK.

 

She probably already knows.

 

“Twenty three years, Ma’am.” He tells her, watching while she doesn’t look away.

 

He doesn’t know why he bothered trying really: he’s probably got more to feel guilty about than she does.

 

“What about you?”

 

“Two months.” Clara admits. “And about…a year ahead from your perspective.”

 

Time travel, it always made keeping track of things a challenge.

 

-

 

He was ten the first time and it was an accident.

 

Because Len was old enough by then that he didn’t believe in heroes anymore. There was no Superman or Icon to sweep down and take him and Lisa away. There was no magic, perfect world to run away to.

 

There were only cops who looked the other way and his Dad and sometimes enough change in his pocket that he could get a milkshake or something at the diner and hide for a couple of hours.

 

That was all he’d been trying to do: put off going home for a few hours.

 

It was a new diner and it was empty but it was open. And he’d figured that may be the waitress was on a break or something, which would add another ten minutes or so to how long he could stay away-

 

Then the place had started shaking, made a noise like something a thousand times bigger than a dying car.

 

He’d thought it was a fucking earth quake.

 

The shutters came down over the windows, thick and black like something that’d protect a jewellery store window not a diner. He’d scrambled to the door but it had been locked tight, until suddenly it hadn’t.

 

Leonard Snart was ten the first time he staggered out on to another planet.

 

Kel-darnar, the bit they’d landed on was a wide beach with bright orange sand and an ocean that was almost black. The forest looked like it was built up of towering strands of seaweed, huge lime green fans and beyond them were buildings that looked like they were floating-

 

The air smelt slightly like apples.

 

When he closes his eyes he can sometimes convince himself he can still smell it.

 

He’d spun round and found the diner behind him, same as it had been when he’d walked in. Len had taken a deep breath and gone back inside.

 

Which was how he met Clara Oswald, who lived frozen between heart beats, and Lady Me, who couldn’t die.

 

-

 

They stare at each other and Clara stops smiling.

 

“How are you?” She asks softly.

 

“In jail.” Leonard Snart replies.

 

“Oh Lenny.”

 

-

 

He’d thought, best case, they’d yell and hit him and dump him back home. Worst case he was dead.

 

Clara had smiled.

 

“Hi Lenny, how long has it been for you?”

 

She’d known his name. And Len’d clammed up, jaw clenching tight. He’d tried to keep his face blank. Clara had frowned.

 

After a moment she’d brought herself down to his level.

 

“My name’s Clara.” She’d explained, patiently way too patiently. “This is Me. We’ve met you before. Have…do you remember us?”

 

“No.” Len murmured and Clara had said that it was OK, that they were friends.

 

“Prove it.” Len grated and he’d have been in trouble for talking like that if his Dad had been around but-

 

Clara had sat back on the floor. “Your name’s Leonard Snart, you’ve got a younger sister called Lisa and you hate your father.”

 

“Everyone knows that.” Len replied.

 

“Alright,” Clara said (she had an accent, may be English?) “Last week you stole ten dollars from your teacher’s desk. You used it to buy Lisa a soft toy. Your Dad took her last one away; he said she was too old for them. It looks like a racoon. You picked it because you saw one fight a dog twice its size once.”

 

She shouldn’t have known that. He hadn’t gotten caught, not by his teacher and not by his Dad.

 

“How’d you know?”

 

“You told me.” Clara said. “Well, you tell me. We’re time travelers, tenses get confusing.”

 

She’d smiled-

 

They’d spent eight days on Kel-darnar and it was a lot of firsts for Len. The first time he met an alien and the first time he’d slept out under the stars. The first time he’d been to a nature reserve and the first time he helped topple a government.

 

The first time he held a gun was on Kel-darnar but it hadn’t been for long and he hadn’t shot anything. They’d spent most of their time running away.

 

Then after eight days they went back to the diner and flew away. It landed right where and when he’d left Central.

 

-

 

It wasn’t there the next day, or the day after. But fifteen days later the diner was back, just where he remembered.

 

Lady Me was sitting at the counter in a suit too nice for a diner and probably too nice for the neighbourhood. She was drinking coffee, like a normal person.

 

Len stood next to the doorway, trying not to shift from foot to foot.

 

Me didn’t say anything so after a while Len asked-

 

“Ummm how long has it been for you?”

 

Me turned and stared like she was concentrating on something buried away in the middle of his brain that no one else could see.

 

“I’m not sure.” She said finally. “Not too long, I can still remember you.”

 

After another awkward silence Len went up and sat beside her on the counter.

 

“Is your sister coming?” Me asked.

 

“I’ve never brought Lisa-”

 

Me smiled. “Yet.”

 

-

 

“Do you remember what you told me on Xalmaani?” Len wonders.

 

And he hasn’t said that name for decades but he can still pronounce the clicks perfectly.

 

On the other side of the glass Clara nods. “It’s still true Lenny.”

 

“Really?” Len drawls.

 

-

 

It was the second time he’d been in The Diner and the third planet when he finally just asked.

 

It was on Xalmaani, after the misunderstanding with the sentient trees, he’d been sitting on one of the fountains next to Clara drinking something that wasn’t chocolate but tasted pretty close.

 

“Why don’t you take me and Lisa away?”

 

He remembers the way that Clara froze.

 

“I mean,” He’d continued. “You know about Dad. I told you, or I will, later. And Me said you met Lisa, you let her come before so- Why can’t we just do this all the time? It’s not cos it’s dangerous, if it was you wouldn’t let us come at all. So…”

 

He’d trailed off and Clara had put a hand under his chin, turned his head so he was looking at her. She’d had the saddest smile he’d ever seen.

 

“You’re _special_ Lenny.” She said it like it was important. “One day, when you’re older, you and Lisa are going to change the world. But for that to happen…you need to grow up at home.”

 

“Home sucks.” It was an understatement.

 

“I know.” Clara said and she hugged him. “I’m so sorry. But if I don’t take you back we’ll never meet at all.”

 

-

 

Later, when he was older, he’d wonder if their little trips had already fucked up the time line. Or if she’d lied.

 

Or if the only reason Clara couldn’t save them was cos she first met him some time in his future, when he was no-good criminal who hadn’t been saved.

 

-

 

He half-expects her to take Scarlet’s line, to tell him there’s ‘good in him’ but Clara doesn’t. Instead she says-

 

“Do you remember what I told you about the Doctor?”

 

Len shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He’s never met the Doctor and pretty sure he doesn’t want to after all the guy made Clara and he made Me.

 

Turned a school teacher into a force of nature, frozen in time and a teenage girl into a warrior who just can’t die.

 

“Enough of it.”

 

-

 

The third time he saw The Diner he dragged Lisa along on what turned out to be the first trip where no one got shot at.

 

And after that it got weirdly routine. Every few weeks The Diner would be there and they just couldn’t walk past it. Even when a break from home wasn’t always…safe.

 

-

 

“It’s OK to be afraid.” Clara said, pulling him into the kind of close hug he hadn’t had from an adult since Lisa’s Mum left.

 

He was eleven. Galmandor, during their fourth World War when they’d started trying to use Sontaran cloning tech. First time he’d fired a gun, first time Lisa had too.

 

And he’d kept thinking that he should be tougher than this already. Beyond fear and pain. Old enough not to want to curl up into a ball and cry, let alone do it-

 

His Dad would have killed him. Clara told him it was OK.

 

“You see fear is a superpower.” She whispered with conviction. “Your heart is beating so hard, pumping so much blood and oxygen through your brain it’s like rocket fuel. You can run faster and fight harder and jump higher than you ever have in your life. You’re so alert it’s like you’ve slowed down time. There is _nothing_ wrong with scared.”

 

-

 

He doesn’t know what Me said to Lisa. Len had Clara and Lisa had Me.

 

That’s just how it was.

 

-

 

“Do you remember the rules?” Clara asks and Len tilts his head to the side, shrugs as best he can in cuffs.

 

“Run like hell cos you’ll always need to. Laugh at everything, because it’s always funny.”

 

The first two rules were easy.

 

“Never be cruel and never be cowardly.” Len sighs. “I kinda fucked up on the last one.”

 

-

 

They traveled in The Diner, on and off, for may be eight years.

 

It’s the kind of things that shapes you, changes you.

 

The Snart kids learnt how to fight together in Medieval China, when the Silurians laid siege to a small town.

 

Sometimes Len thinks Lisa grew up more on other planets, in other times, than she did in Central and he’s kinda jealous of that.

 

She was better at it than him. She learnt to fly a space ship years before she learnt to drive; it ain’t surprising that she passed her test first time. She flew against the Cybermen at thirteen, when The Diner landed on that space station near Colony 389-D and the Admiral had clapped her on the back, told her she was a natural.

 

She learnt to use a sword, with a skill and finesse Len never could, and it saved their lives in Antioch in 1098.

 

She lied to the Dalek Emperor and _it believed her_.

 

When he was a teenager Len thought that if they really were special, if history was gonna remember them, then it was obviously gonna be for something Lisa managed to pull off. He was gonna be remembered as her brother. He was allowed to do all this because he’d support Lisa, help her stand taller.

 

And may be keep her a little bit safer, he was the better shot after all.

 

Later, after they stopped going to The Diner, he thought may be he’d become her crutch by accident. That he was dragging her down.

 

He realised later that was stupid, because Lisa had never listened to anyone but Lady Me. That was how it was: Lisa had Me and Len had Clara.

 

And really that explained a lot.

 

-

 

Clara smiles at him, beautiful as a butterfly trapped in amber.

 

“What about the rest?”

 

“What?”

 

“You forgot the ending.” Clara tells him. “‘Never be cruel and never be cowardly, but if you are always make amends.’”

 

Len stares at the floor. It’s a little too close to what Barry goddamn Allen says.

 

Clara leans forward as if she’s about to tell him a secret.

 

“Lenny listen to me. You’re not going to be in here much longer and when you’re out…you’re going to get an opportunity. You need to take it.”

 

He looks up sharply, frowns. She might bust him out but it sounds more like-

 

Like his future is her past again.

 

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any useful details?” He drawls.

 

Clara smiles wider. “Wouldn’t that ruin the surprise?”

 

He laughs and she doesn’t tell him much more exactly but she says enough for him to figure that he’ll be in a time machine again soon, but not The Diner.

 

Which is interesting.

 

Clara makes a face at the clock and possibly at the irony that she’s almost out of time.

 

“You matter.” Clara whispers, like if she says it enough Len might believe it. “I wasn’t lying, you _do_ change the world. You help save it.”

 

The strange thing is this time he believes it more.

 

“You remember the first time I met you?” Len asks.

 

“No.” Clara replies and she remembers everything, not like Me, which means it hasn’t happened to her yet.

 

“I went into The Diner, corner of Jackson and Clark, 3rd of March 1985. The front was empty and next thing I knew we were on Kel-darnar. You said we were friends and I wanted you to prove it. So you told me that the week before I’d stolen ten dollars from my teacher’s desk and bought Lisa a stuffed racoon.”

 

Clara nods. “Bandit. I remember Bandit.”

 

She pauses for a moment and then asks. “Why a racoon?”

 

It should be weird, it all coming round full circle, but it isn’t.

 

“They’re tough little bastards.” Len says. “I once saw one fight a dog twice it’s size.”

 

They don’t have long left and who knows when Clara might show up again? So-

 

“When did you meet me? The first time.”

 

Clara gives him her widest, happiest smile. “After you saved the world.”

 

-

 

A few weeks later and Len found himself listening to some guy called Rip Hunter lecture like he was the world’s authority on time travel. The others seemed to be impressed but Len wasn’t.

 

‘Captain’ Hunter’s ship isn’t even bigger on the inside.


End file.
